PILOT IN A CRASH HAD LOW RATINGS

The National Transportation Safety Board staff released reports today showing that the pilot of an American Eagle turboprop that crashed near Raleigh-Durham International Airport last December, killing 15 people, joined American Eagle four days after being forced to quit by another airline for incompetence.

A cockpit transcript shows that in the last moments of the flight, the pilot apparently became confused about whether one of his two engines had stopped, and if so, which one.

The pilot and co-pilot apparently misinterpreted a light in the cockpit; the transcript of the cockpit voice recorder shows that they had concluded, erroneously, that the left engine had quit. Then, the transcript shows, the pilot became confused about whether it was the right engine or the left for which he was supposed to compensate.

The last words recorded in the cockpit were from the co-pilot, 11 seconds before impact. He said to the pilot, "It's the wrong, wrong foot, wrong engine." If an engine fails in a two-engine plane, the pilot or co-pilot can compensate for the unbalanced thrust by using a foot pedal to deflect the rudder.

But according to the board's analyses of the wreckage and of the engine sounds on the cockpit voice recorder, both engines appeared to be operating, and there was no evidence that either one shut down.

Both the pilot and co-pilot were killed in the Dec. 13 crash, along with 13 of the 18 passengers. The plane, a Jetstream 3200 traveling from Greensboro, N.C., was approaching the airport in rain and fog.

The reports released today show that the pilot, Capt. Michael P. Hillis, 29, who had completed a one-year probationary period as a co-pilot at Comair, a Delta Air Lines Inc. commuter line, "was allowed to resign in lieu of the termination of his employment." He left Comair on Jan. 3, 1991, a Thursday, and was hired by Flagship Airlines, a commuter carrier that does business as American Eagle, a subsidiary of AMR Corporation, on Jan. 7, the following Monday.

Martin P. Heires, a spokesman for American Eagle, said today in an interview that the company had not been aware of the circumstances under which Captain Hillis left Comair and that he had passed simulator tests and was qualified to fly.

The reports show that safety board investigators had interviewed a number of people who had worked with Captain Hillis at Comair. A pilot who had evaluated Captain Hillis's performance in December 1990 said he had advised the company to dismiss Captain Hillis when his probation ended. That pilot also told the investigators that it was the first time in his aviation career that he had made such a recommendation.

In addition, the same pilot said Captain Hillis had told him that "his father was a flight engineer who held out hope that his son would do well in aviation." The pilot continued, "These pressures seemed to be a large weight for Mike to bear, and in combination with his problem fitting in at Comair, seemed to be taking a toll on Mike."

Another Comair pilot, who rated Captain Hillis's performance as a first officer, or co-pilot, in June 1990, told investigators that when he was asked whether he would be comfortable flying as a passenger on a plane for which Captain Hillis was the captain, or pilot, with an inexperienced first officer, he had answered "no."

And a third Comair pilot, who rated Captain Hillis in April 1990, told investigators that "Mike had below average piloting skills that required my constant attention." That pilot also said that "Mike was frequently 'behind the airplane' and lost situational awareness," adding that "while Mike and I never got into any emergencies together, I was somewhat concerned that Mike may freeze up or get tunnel vision."

In October 1992, at American Eagle, Captain Hillis was tested in a cockpit simulator, a computer-driven mock-up of a cockpit that sits on a platform that tilts and jerks to mimic a plane, with video screens in front of the cockpit windows, and speakers that play engine noise. Captain Hillis not only failed the test, the investigators found, but the test was terminated early because the pilot failed to complete many maneuvers or, for the ones he did complete, his performance was unsatisfactory. But he was given another 1.8 hours of training and passed an examination in an airplane the next day.

Mr. Heires, the American Eagle spokesman, said he did not know how often simulator checks were cut short by examiners. But he said: "It is not uncommon for a pilot to sometimes fail portions of his training and take that portion over again and pass. It's not first-time-and-you're out."

A co-pilot at American Eagle had rated Captain Hillis as weak on decision-making and leadership.

The reports released today include ones on the cockpit voice recorder and another on the flight data recorder. A third discussed "operational factors/human performance," while others covered air traffic control, weather, "survival factors" among people on the plane, engines and maintenance.

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The safety board has not drawn up conclusions yet, but the information released today shows an inconsistent pattern of actions in the cockpit. The board probably will not issue a statement about the probable causes of the crash until late summer, said a spokesman, Alan Pollack.

C. Gregg Overman, a spokesman from the Allied Pilots Association, the union that represents American Eagle pilots, said: "Since the N.T.S.B. has not finished its investigation, we're simply not in a position to comment. Anything we would have to say now would be in the realm of speculation."

If the crew thought one engine had failed, there is no evidence in the reports that they put the propeller in neutral gear, or "feathering," a step needed to allow it to spin freely, reducing drag and making the plane easier to fly on one engine. And data from the black box, or flight data recorder, shows that during the period when they were focusing on whether they had lost an engine, they were slowly losing speed.

Jetstream Aircraft, a subsidiary of British Aerospace p.l.c. that was the plane's manufacturer, said this afternoon that the light that went on in the cockpit "is not in and of itself the indication of an engine failure." The pilots had complained to each other on the cockpit voice recorder that the plane seemed slow and had a tendency to pull to one side; the documents released today do not make clear why this was so.

American Eagle did not know when it hired Captain Hillis that he had failed his probation, said Mr. Heires, the company's spokesman. But this was not unusual, he said.

"Flagship inquired with the former employer, and did not receive any information," Mr. Heires said. This, he said, "is a pretty common practice," adding that "a former employee can sue his former employer over that type of information."

Anthony Broderick, the Federal Aviation Administration's associate administrator for regulation and certification, said that information like that probably would not "be made available by the losing company to the gaining company."

More important, Mr. Broderick said, was that the pilot had passed his most recent tests. He emphasized that Captain Hillis had had "no accidents, no incidents, no enforcement violations."

And American Eagle, Mr. Broderick continued, trains its commuter pilots under the standards used for large aircraft, not the standards required for commuter planes, which are less strict.

American Eagle would not comment further on the report, saying that it was waiting for the safety board to issue a determination of probable causes of the crash.

The board is not holding a public hearing on the crash, which means that investigators believe they know what the problem was. While they did not make that explicit today, one of the documents released described how investigators programmed a simulator to mimic the plane. Flying at low speed and deciding to execute a "missed approach" -- that is, to abort a landing approach and try again -- the investigators applied power to the right engine only, as the pilots might have done if they thought the left engine had failed.

"Unless rudder application was coordinated well with power application, it was very difficult to control the airplane," the report said.

The crash was the fifth fatal crash in the United States in 1994 and was the impetus for a so-called safety summit ordered by the Transportation Secretary, Federico F. Pena, in January. It was also one of the factors behind a decision by the F.A.A. to eliminate separate, looser rules for small planes.

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A version of this article appears in print on April 14, 1995, on Page A00001 of the National edition with the headline: PILOT IN A CRASH HAD LOW RATINGS. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe